230 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Mar. 19, 



Urbicus ended his vallum at Old Kilpatrick. He carried it, in fact, 

 as far westward as he could carry it, and placed its last fort on a 

 promontory which commanded the passage of the Clyde. He thus 

 drove the natives to the necessity of making their incursions by 

 crossing further down in the more open and exposed part of the 

 river below Dumbarton. The Antonine Wall, therefore, yields no 

 evidence in favour of the land having remained stationary since the 

 time of the Romans. On the contrary, it appears to indicate that 

 since its erection the land has actually risen. 



I have examined the sites of the Eoman harbours along the east 

 coast of Scotland, without obtaining any proof of a stability of level. 

 Inveresk and Cranund, the chief seaports, tend to confirm the opinion 

 that since the Romans left the country the coast of the Forth has not 

 merely been silted up, but has actually been upraised 20 or 25 feet 

 above its previous level. The position of the remains of a harbour 

 mentioned by Sir Robert Sinclair as having existed fully five miles 

 from the present sea -margin, in the valley of the Carron, near Camelon 

 (the old Statio ad Vallum), along with an anchor dug up at the same 

 place, likewise go to corroborate this conclusion*. But for this part of 

 the evidence I may be permitted to refer to the paper in which 

 attention was first called to this subject f. 



Several antiquaries have referred to the difference between the 

 present aspect of the Scottish coast-line and that which it must have 

 had in some places when seen by the Romans. This evidence is 

 that of men who had no geological bias, but who drew their infer- 

 ences chiefly from a consideration of the present position of the 

 antiquities which they described. So far as it goes, therefore, it is 

 not without its value, adding as it does another collateral confirmation 

 to the proofs in favour of a recent rise of the land. Thus Horsley, 

 sagaciously observing the disposition of the ground at the western 

 end of the Wall of Severus, and the necessity of defending this 

 point with care, concludes that the Roman engineers could never have 

 allowed so long a space to intervene between the sea- shore and the 

 end of the wall, as that which now separates them. The Solway 

 Firth, he says, " must have reached much higher, both southward 

 and northward, than it does now;" for, as the wall stands at present, 

 a body of men might easily march unperceived round its end. He 

 also states that, although now so far removed from the sea-margin, 

 this rampart of Severus extends further seaward than the earlier 

 one of Hadrian. How far the change may have been due to a 

 silting up of the estuary, or to an actual elevation of the land, can 

 only be determined by a careful examination of the locaKty. 



Horsley's observations along the Solway prepared him for the 

 detection of similar phenomena along the other Scottish estuaries. 



* Sibbald, Histor. Inquir. pp. 34 and 41. See also Gordon's * Itinerarium Sep- 

 tentrionale,' pp. 23, 29 ; and Stuart's ' Caledonia Romana,' pp. 177-8. Buchanan 

 wrote that in his time ruins of the Roman Camelon resembled those of a modem 

 city ; and that its ditches, walls, and streets were then apparent (Hist. Scot, 

 lib. i.). 

 : t Edin. New Phil. Journ., new series, vol. xiv. p. 107. 



